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Sep 19, 2018

CARRIZO
SPRINGS/KATY, Texas (Reuters) - Texas cattle rancher Bill Martin is a
lifelong Republican who owns more than 20 firearms and has been shooting
guns since the age of 6.
He is now considering the once-unthinkable: voting for a Democratic Senate candidate who wants tougher gun laws.
Martin,
72, has a simple explanation for his change of heart: He is sick of the
gun violence plaguing America and his gun-loving state, where 26
worshippers died in a church massacre last year.
“Even as
conservative as I am, there has to be a middle ground on guns,” said
Martin during an interview on his ranch near the city of Carrizo
Springs.
Martin’s nuanced view on firearms - he loves them but
wants to see tougher restrictions - is one U.S. Senate candidate Beto
O’Rourke hopes is gaining traction in Texas.
O’Rourke, a
congressman from El Paso and the Democratic challenger to Ted Cruz in
November’s Texas Senate race, has made reforming gun laws a central part
of his platform, calling for universal background checks and a ban on
assault weapons.
In previous elections, a Democrat calling for
gun reforms in Texas, which has the country’s highest rate of gun
ownership, faced almost certain political suicide. But O’Rourke is
presenting a serious challenge to Cruz.
A Reuters/Ipsos/UVA
Center for Politics poll released on Wednesday shows O’Rourke having
pulled even with Cruz among likely voters. Other recent polling has
shown Cruz slightly ahead, and a Quinnipiac University Poll released
Tuesday found O’Rourke trailing by 9 percentage points.
For both
parties, stakes in the Texas race are high. Democrats need to pick up
two seats in the Nov. 6 elections to claim a majority in the Senate, and
Republicans want to keep the state, which hasn’t elected a Democrat to
statewide office since 1994, in its “safe” column for national
elections.
(For a graphic on Texas electoral politics: tmsnrt.rs/2pg6PRh)
O’Rourke’s
competitiveness challenges the long-held assumption that gun regulation
is a dangerous issue to embrace in red states like Texas. This year,
seven congressional Democratic candidates in the state have also
embraced gun reforms, and all of them have been endorsed by the firearms
safety group founded by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. The
organization did not endorse any Texas candidates in 2016.

Bill
Martin, 72, prepares to shoot a Ruger Mini-14 rifle on his ranch near
Carizzo Springs, Texas, U.S. September 5, 2018. REUTERS/Callaghan O'Hare

Gun
control is “not a black and white issue,” said Geoffrey Skelley, an
independent analyst on Senate races at the University of Virginia Center
for Politics, “and I guess for O’Rourke that’s good news, because if it
was he’d probably be in a lot of trouble in a state like Texas.”
Cruz,
who is seeking a second term in the U.S. Senate, is putting his faith
in the traditional playbook, attacking his opponent for his positions on
firearms.
At a recent campaign event near Houston, Cruz called
O’Rourke’s views on guns “completely out of step with the values of most
Texans,” saying O’Rourke advocated “banning some of the most popular
firearms in America.”
O’Rourke’s campaign did not respond to interview requests from Reuters.

CHANGING ATTITUDES

Support
for gun regulation in the United States has ebbed and flowed, but in
recent years, polls have found growing support nationally for tougher
gun laws. In a poll last October of American adults, Gallup found that
67 percent of respondents favored stricter laws governing gun sales, the
highest percentage since 1993.
A Reuters/Ipsos national poll
this year found similar support for gun control in Texas, with
two-thirds of adults supporting “strong” or “moderate” regulations or
restrictions on firearms.
Texas voters remain sharply divided by
party on the issue, however, a Quinnipiac University Poll found in May.
While 70 percent of Texas Republicans opposed stricter gun laws, the
poll found, 79 percent of Democrats supported them.
To win in
November, O’Rourke would need massive Democratic turnout, said the
University of Virginia’s Skelley, and the gun issue might help him
motivate the party’s base.
Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist and Texas native, is skeptical whether most gun owners will accept O’Rourke’s message.
“I don’t see the issue helping O’Rourke,” O’Connell said. “It may help with his base, but this helps Cruz more.”
His
position on guns has definitely helped Cruz with fundraising. This
election cycle, he has been the top recipient of donations from gun
rights groups, receiving nearly $42,000 from them, according to the
nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Slideshow (18 Images)

‘SLIPPERY SLOPE’ VS. ‘COMMON SENSE’
Cruz hammers hard on gun rights during campaign stops.
At
the Tin Roof BBQ outside Houston, the Republican derided O’Rourke for
touting his poor rating from the National Rifle Association. Later that
day, Cruz spoke at his former high school in Katy, near Santa Fe High
School, where 10 people were killed by a gunman earlier this year.
He said teachers with firearms training should be allowed to have a gun in classrooms.
“The number one thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” he said to cheers and applause.
The
Republican’s pro-gun message resonates with Valerie Hernandez, co-owner
of Double H Outfitters, a deer and dove hunting business near San
Antonio, and one of some two dozen Texas gun enthusiasts interviewed by
Reuters.
“It’s a slippery slope,” she said of O’Rourke’s
position on guns. “He’ll start to take some gun rights away and end up
taking our weapons.”
That kind of criticism of O’Rourke is
“absolutely over the top,” said Brian King, an avid hunter who owns
rifles, shotguns and handguns.
King, 29, said he voted for Trump
in the 2016 presidential contest but is leaning toward backing O’Rourke
this year. He said that, while he doesn’t favor an assault weapons ban,
he is more worried about safety in schools and other public spaces than
about people having their guns taken away.
“I am totally on board for some common-sense gun reform,” King said.

Reporting by Tim Reid in Carrizo Springs, Texas, and James Oliphant in Katy, Texas; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Sue Horton

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